Brain Injuries, Severe Weight Loss, Fatal Heat Exposure: PETA Files Complaint After Johns Hopkins Cited for Repeated Animal Welfare Violations

For Immediate Release:
November 5, 2026

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

Please see the following statement from PETA Vice President Dr. Alka Chandna regarding three just-posted citations from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) against Johns Hopkins University for critical, repeated violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act. Among the violations, two macaques had to be euthanized after sustaining traumatic brain injuries when experimenters attempted to clean and remove tissue around devices attached to their skulls. Five bats baked to death in triple-digit heat in an uncooled enclosure on the roof of a building during the July 4 weekend. PETA has just filed a complaint with the National Institutes of Health (NIH), urging it to revoke JHU’s Animal Welfare Assurance, without which the university cannot receive NIH funding to conduct experiments on animals:

Monkeys suffered traumatic brain injuries, animals wasted away without required veterinary intervention, and bats died after being left in searing rooftop heat. These federal violations expose Johns Hopkins’ failure to meet even minimal standards. With its insatiable thirst for federal tax dollars, the university received more funding from NIH than any other institution in the country, lapping up more than $844 million this year alone. PETA strongly urges NIH to revoke Johns Hopkins’ Animal Welfare Assurance and demands that the university stop tormenting animals and invest in human-relevant, non-animal research methods to pursue the cures and treatments that experiments on animals have failed to deliver.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram.